Behavioral Therapy Case Study

In the behavioral approach to therapy the root cause of psychopathology is learning maladaptive behaviors (because we are learning how to adapt from our surroundings) and that these problems persist because of reinforcement and punishment. In the case of Cindy, she has had a lifetime of modeling and learning the negative body relationships her sister, mother, and father seem to have as well as those of the sorority sisters she spent so much time with in college. In regards to rewards and punishment, Cindy was merely avoiding criticisms from her critical parents about her weight when she remained very thin which was reinforcing enough. When she weighed 140 pounds after college graduation, her mother began tracking her weight and her father made hurtful comments, which sent a very clear signal that she …show more content…
The therapist is to act as “teacher” while the patient is the student, but there is still collaboration. The patient being able to trust and believe the therapist knows what they are doing is very important. A behavioral therapy technique that would probably be very beneficial for Cindy is functional assessment. In functional assessment, a patient writes down the behavior they want to change and as homework they write down whatever triggered the behavior when it happens and what the consequences of the behavior were. The ultimate goal of functional assessment is to replace or modify the behavior through also changing the trigger or the consequence. For example, Cindy might figure out that what triggers a binge or purge is a nasty phone conversation with her dad. Because of functional assessment, she and her therapist could work out a way to help her to learn to avoid telephone conversations with her father and consequently reduce the bingeing or